Know anyone called Osama?

I've been keeping an eye on Channel 4's Osama Loves project since it launched late last week; total number of Osamas signed up so far? Just the four.

Part of Channel 4's 'Wonders of Islam' season, the Osama Loves project gives Farrah Jarral, a doctor, and filmmaker Masood Khan 50 days to find 500 people called Osama and ask them what they love. The mission, of course, is to show 500 very different, very diverse and insightful views from people across the Muslim world who are nothing like that Osama.

Masood and Farrah upload videos and blog posts each day and ask people to help them find new Osamas. Andy Bell, the managing director of Mint Digital, talk about this project as an aside during his session at 2gether08 last week. (Mint Digital has produced community-orientated websites for several TV shows, and executed them with exceptional insight and simplicity.)

"They hope that by using the name of the world's most infamous Muslim," says Mint Digital, "they will reveal the sunnier side of Islam."

Bell explained this idea was fuelled by his marriage to a Muslim woman in Morocco last summer. The congratulations cards from his family were warm and welcoming but the tone was, in his words: "You give us hope that things aren't all that bad after all..."

Cards from their Moroccan family, in contrast, talked about their house, their families, their children and work, which made Bell feel that the UK media coverage of Muslims is too focused on terrorists, rather than the ebb and low of life and routine, and friendship and family, as is the reality for all of us.